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J.D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield, Aging Gracelessly
Washington Post ^ | October 19, 2004 | JONATHAN YARDLEY

Posted on 10/23/2004 6:55:30 AM PDT by jalisco555

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To: jalisco555

J.D. Salinger should have restricted his writing to sh*t house walls. That's where it belonged in the first place.


121 posted on 10/23/2004 7:58:22 PM PDT by Fiddlstix (This Tagline for sale. (Presented by TagLines R US))
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To: nothingnew
My ninth grade english teacher had us read Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy.......if I ever run across her I'll slap her silly.

You should kiss her. She could have made you read Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles...*shudder*

Thank God I can choose what I teach in Brit Lit! Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare, Paradise Lost, etc. That's real literature!

122 posted on 10/23/2004 8:19:41 PM PDT by Charles H. (The_r0nin) (Still teaching... or a reasonable facsimile thereof...)
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To: durasell

Never, either. I selected the handle from an old memory of the sound of the name & a vague impression left over from seeing the movie when I was too young to remember much about it. Holly's name trips off of the tongue so delightfully, does it not? Still, she is a Holiday, while I am not.


123 posted on 10/23/2004 10:29:22 PM PDT by GoLightly (If it doesn't kill ya, it makes ya stronger.)
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To: GoLightly

The movie was a love story. The book was a tragedy. Holly was written as a tragic figure. And in ny event, Bonwitt Teller is long out of business.


124 posted on 10/24/2004 7:36:55 AM PDT by durasell (Friends are so alarming, My lover's never charming...)
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To: IronJack
I know for a fact that some English teachers of American lit choose Old Man and the Sea and Catcher in the Rye because they themselves have read them in the past and thus these novels are familiar and easy to teach AND because their students will be more inclined to read these SHORT novels.

(-former English teacher of British lit)

125 posted on 10/24/2004 7:54:45 AM PDT by Carolinamom (John & Liz Edwards: trash w/cash)
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To: durasell
The movie was a love story.

So they say. I caught a small portion of the movie shortly after I selected the handle. IMO, even the movie could not hide the tragedy. About all I could see was a shallow, empty existence. Maybe if I had watched the whole thing, I would have gotten a different impression.

The book was a tragedy. Holly was written as a tragic figure.

I guess because of "In Cold Blood", I always thought Capote's work was grim & dark. It got great reviews, so I picked it up & began reading it, but couldn't force myself through it. Add in his media appearances, they left me with the feeling that he was a bit creepy. I was surprised to find out he'd written "Breakfast at Tiffany's", as again, it was billed as such a wonderful love story.

Bonwitt Teller is long out of business.

I didn't know that, but I'm far from NY. I'm just a small town gal & not into shopping anyway. LOL

126 posted on 10/24/2004 5:10:02 PM PDT by GoLightly (If it doesn't kill ya, it makes ya stronger.)
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To: GoLightly

Holly's existance not so shallow as may first be assumed.

Remember, Capote, in spite of everything, was a small town Southern guy.

And In Cold Blood was a breakthrough book. Nobody had ever written a murder story like that before, that is, using the novelist's tools of the trade. Norman Mailer called it the product of a bankrupt imagination, then copied the exact same technique twenty years later with Executioner's Song, but did a lousy job of it.

In Cold Blood Bonus Trivia: Capote spent months in Kansas interviewing everyone involved. However, when he sensed hostility regarding his "lifestyle," he called his childhood/life long friend, Harper Lee (author of To Kill a Mockingbird) who promptly got on a train for Kansas with her father's old .45 and acted as his bodyguard for the duration of the interviewing process.


127 posted on 10/24/2004 5:35:52 PM PDT by durasell (Friends are so alarming, My lover's never charming...)
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To: LadyDoc
BTW: Wasn't Catcher in the Rye the book in Conspiracy theory,

Yup.

128 posted on 10/24/2004 5:43:02 PM PDT by Tribune7
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To: durasell

Regarding Holly, the first term that came to mind was brittle, defined in the sense of brittle laugher. When I say shallow, it's not the fluffy headed type of shallow, where there is no knowing any better. It's where you understand greater meanings, yet do not persue them. You attempt of to fill the emptiness with busyness, meaningless doings.

I'm sure "In Cold Blood" is a great read for many people. Delving into difficult, dark subjects is in some ways necessary, for some, for others...

Maybe I'm strange, but I mull & have for as long as I can remember. Writing my response to you brought another murder back into my mind, one that happened around the same time as Capote's book was published. The adults didn't talk about it around children, but you'd catch them talking about it with each other in hushed tones. I grew up in a small town & young women were just not found dead in a pool of their own blood, with over 30 stab wounds, not in small town, middle America. Diane had been a neighbor & my favorite babysitter when I was younger. Her murder has never been solved.

Anyway, I try to be careful about the kinds of things I bring into my psyche to mull about.

Your bonus trivia, LOL Yes, I can see that!


129 posted on 10/24/2004 7:10:00 PM PDT by GoLightly (If it doesn't kill ya, it makes ya stronger.)
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To: GoLightly

Holly was the type of character you can trace back to Becky Sharp (Thackery's Vanity Fair) etc.

And yeah, Capote was somewhat fascinated by the dark side of life, which he eventually fell into. I'd argue that he more or less squandered his talent, which was sizeable. Too many parties, too many drugs, too many wasted days yakking with rich women.

Bonus Capote Material (Warning: somewhat racey): Capote never went to college. Rather, he took a job in the mail room of The New Yorker Magazine. The story circulates, which he never denied, that one of his jobs was going across the street to a hotel where humorist/cartoonist James Thurber would meet his mistress. Thurber, who was by then almost blind, would have young Truman help him dress for his return to the office. Although Thurber's wife would dress him in the morning and undress him at night, vanity prevented asking his mistress to help. Unhappy with his assignment and ever the moralist, Truman turned the old man's socks inside out, so that his wife would be sure to notice when she helped undress him at night.

One of those stories that is repeated so often that it's almost as good as true.


130 posted on 10/24/2004 7:25:18 PM PDT by durasell (Friends are so alarming, My lover's never charming...)
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To: SuziQ

I loved "Catcher" when I read it at age 14. Don't know if I'd still like it. Dad was in the IV infantry division in Europe with Salinger during WWII and actually knew the guy. By the time the IV got from the beaches of Normandy to Germany they had suffered a casualty rate of over 200%. However, Dad said that Salinger was a real oddball.

I will say that my daughter recently read Catcher (high school assignment) and liked it a lot. She is a no nonsense, no frills, upbeat, happy kid, so that amounts to a recommendation, IMO.

As for Hemingway, I have always adored "The Old Man and the Sea" and don't get the scorn being heaped on it on this thread. Influence of PC, I guess. I understand that Hemingway was supposed to have been a jerk, but he certainly could write!

Some folks seem to want to call those whose literary taste differs from there own liberals. An unhealthy habit, I think.


131 posted on 10/24/2004 7:39:42 PM PDT by Sam Cree (Democrats are herd animals)
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To: durasell

Wow----I haven't heard anyone mention Stop-Time in ages!
I read it just when it came out, when was that,in '67?
It got lots of attention, first because of its literary quality, and secondarily because of the (then) novelty of such a young (and completely unknown)writer breaking into literature with what was basically an AUTOBIOGRAPHY, as if he were already famous. Conroy was somewhere in his early 30s at the time and eventually as you no doubt know ran the Iowa Writers Workshop for many many years, I think he just announced his intention to resign a few months ago, and a successor has been chosen.(Marilynne Robinson, another writer who has written very little) I know he had a second book but I can't remember whether it was anovel or stories, and it didn't get that much attention (too long a wait between books will queer a critic's enthusiasm.)


132 posted on 10/24/2004 7:53:42 PM PDT by willyboyishere
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To: willyboyishere
Conroy published Midair decades later, which was so-so then some stuff about Nantucket (not limericks!) a couple of other things I think. However, and most surprisingly, Stop Time really does hold up. If you're in the market for good books that have gone largely forgotten, try The Alexandria Quartet (Durrell) or Manhattan Transfer (Dos Passos. )
133 posted on 10/24/2004 8:00:19 PM PDT by durasell (Friends are so alarming, My lover's never charming...)
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To: rock58seg
I have to admit I bought Franny and Zooey at a used book sale but I've never been able to bring myself to read it. It's like John O'Hara. You read Appointment in Samarra and you think every O'Hara novel has to be great. Then you read Butterfield 8.

I don't understand the fascination with JD Salinger. Just let the guy fade away already.

134 posted on 10/24/2004 8:00:43 PM PDT by IronJack (R)
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To: IronJack

It's hard to say. I liked "Old Man and the Sea" but I really disliked "For Whom the Bell Tolls." Of course, I didn't like much Hemmingway anyway.


135 posted on 10/24/2004 8:02:54 PM PDT by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch is der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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To: IronJack

What was wrong with Butterfield 8? If you said, Rage to Live, I'd understand. But Butterfield 8?


136 posted on 10/24/2004 8:04:12 PM PDT by durasell (Friends are so alarming, My lover's never charming...)
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To: durasell
Everyone should travel across country by car at least once in their lives. They should be made to stop in small diners and cafes off the interstates and talk with people. I did it the first time many decades ago and the images are as fresh in my mind as if it were last month. It will also fill you with overwhelming love for the country and its people. The perjorative terms "fly over states" and "elites" would vanish from our national vocabulary.

You are so right! I've made the "off the interstates" a point all of my life. When I traveled overseas, I used the same principles. Yeah, check out the 'popular' spots but try the ones off of the beaten path. I can't even begin to describe the rewards of that philosophy. Sad to say, one of my ex-girlfriends lost me forever after wanting to go to the Orlando tourist traps instead of just 'exploring'. Oh, well....

137 posted on 10/24/2004 8:27:38 PM PDT by Looking4Truth (NEVER trust Muslims to keep their word.)
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To: durasell

That's right ,MIDAIR, couldn't remember the name. Of Dos Passos, I've only read USA and Three Soldiers, but nothing of Lawrence Durrell. His friend Henry Miller has given me as much pleasure as any other practitioner of fiction (though Miller was usually autobiographical) BLACK SPRING is unforgettable. Thinking about it some time ago, I realized that most of my favorite books ARE in fact basically autobiographies. The aforementioned Miller, Diary of a Madman by Strindberg, Because I was Flesh by Edward Dahlberg---this last one probably impressed me at the age of 21 or 22 as much as anything I've ever read. Here's another great American novel from about 1964: Richard Yates's REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, the first and best novel to anatomize the earliest generation to come of age after WW2(his own), settle in suburbia (Revolutionary Road is the name of the section of the development they live in), and lead rather unhappily conflicted lives of "quiet desperation". A GREAT NOVEL.
----BTW ---I noticed scrolling down this thread you mentioned Knowles as the author of THE COLLECTOR. It was Fowles. Didn't read the novel but the movie I remember as outstanding. Also I saw you mentioned Duke of Deception and Boy's Life by the Woolf brothers. Both fine books. Geoffrey is a friend of a writer friend of mine from the late 60s, who also has a coming of age novel that's good and worth reading, and basically is all about US in the late 60s early 70s---James Atlas, "The Great Pretender".


138 posted on 10/24/2004 9:18:00 PM PDT by willyboyishere
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To: willyboyishere

Ashamed to say, I haven't read Yates. One of the holes in my fiction education. However, I despise Henry Miller for reasons I don't quite understand. I read about three paragraphs of the guy and want to slap him silly. Durrell probably shouldn't be missed, though out of fashion. Also, if you're into honest writing, check out Jim Harrison, particularly his new memoir, Life on the Side. He was part of that whole montana group, including McGuane etc. And, he remains the only "celebrity" who has ever intimidated me.


139 posted on 10/24/2004 10:01:27 PM PDT by durasell (Friends are so alarming, My lover's never charming...)
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To: jalisco555
"Like most high school students I had these books inflicted on me and I've yet to forgive my teachers.

Our teacher made us read a WHOLE collection of Salinger stories: it was absolutely mind numbing rot. Also on our high school literary agenda was "Black Like Me" (guilt), "The Pearl" (if you ever strike it rich, it'll make you greedy and your life will turn to tragedy etc). And a collection of Edgar A. Poe (by the way, drugs are bad).

140 posted on 10/24/2004 10:17:01 PM PDT by two23
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